Twitter usage surging to new high

Social network traffic has surged to new record highs in the past three weeks.

First, on Christmas Day, Facebook became the most visited Web site, according to the online research firm Hitwise. It was the first time the Google main page had been knocked out of the top spot all year, but Facebook repeated the feat on New Year’s Day.

Then on Tuesday afternoon, Twitter CEO Evan Williams sent out this tweet:

“Across all metrics that matter, yesterday was Twitter’s highest-usage day ever. (And today will be bigger.)”

Williams didn’t say what those metrics were, but some of the news of the day may be behind the surge. The top trending topics included the major earthquake in Haiti, Conan O’Brien’s refusal to go along with NBC’s plans to push “The Tonight Show” past midnight and Google’s relations with China.